Durham, Cubs Square Off

February 19, 1985|By Phil Hersh.

As he strode purposefully through a hallway at the Hyatt Regency near O`Hare, Leon Durham left a herd of media dangling on a string of no comments. Only once would he give the slightest insight into how he felt about Monday`s arbitration hearing.

``How do I look?`` asked the Cubs` first baseman.

If the answer was his smile, Durham looked like a man who will make $800,000 next season even if he loses the case.

Durham, who with his wife, Angela, sat in on the six-hour hearing, is asking for $1.1 million. That would give him the biggest contract ever won in arbitration, $100,000 more than what was awarded to Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela two years ago and Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs last week.

``I`ll tell you all about it in Arizona,`` said Durham, who leaves Wednesday for spring training.

The decision of arbitrator Steve Goldberg, a Northwestern law professor, will be announced Tuesday or Wednesday. The arbitration process, one of the provisions of baseball`s basic agreement since 1974, forces Goldberg to choose between the club or the player, with no compromise.

Just how determined the Cubs were not to make Durham a millionaire was evident in the document their legal team prepared for Monday`s hearing. It was, one man said, ``about as big as the Chicago phone book,`` with tabs indexing 16 separate exhibits the Cubs used to make their case.

The size of that presentation was one factor that contributed to the hearing`s length, some two hours more than the average for baseball arbitrations. The Cubs` encyclopedic book on Durham caught his

representatives, including agent Dick Moss, somewhat by surprise.

``Most teams bring in booklets, but this one was thicker than usual,``

said Eugene Orza of the Major League Players Association, who observed the proceedings. ``It is litigation by appearance.``

It appeared that no ill feeling would result from the hearing. That is an inherent danger in arbitration, where the club is forced to emphasize the player`s shortcomings.

Durham shook hands with both Cubs` general manager Dallas Green and his assistant, John Cox, at the beginning of the hearing. They bantered about the Durham`s new hairstyle, closely cropped in the manner favored by Bulls` star Michael Jordan.

``There was no bitterness,`` said Moss, who represented Valenzuela in 1983. ``Facts are facts, and that is what we both tried to talk about.``

The Cubs refrained from making a verbal point of the most notorious fact about Durham, the error in Game 5 of the National League playoffs that let in the tying run in San Diego`s eventual victory. The Cubs did, however, include the error as a footnote to Durham`s 1984 statistics.

``The question is where Leon Durham fits on the baseball salary schedule,`` Moss said. ``There`s not too much to be said for the other (Cubs`) side, but they presented their case well.``

The two-part hearing begins with case presentation by each side and concludes with rebuttals. The Cubs have had only one other arbitration. In 1980, Bruce Sutter won $700,000 when the team--under its previous owners, the Wrigley family--offered $350,000.

Although several members of the Cubs` front office attended the Durham hearing, they left the arguing to Frank Casey and Robert Dufek of Morgan, Lewis, Bockius, a Washington law firm. Green left before rebuttals to catch a plane for a banquet engagement in Orlando.

``This is a business decision. It`s as simple as that,`` Cox said when asked about possible bitterness. ``There is no need for one side or the other to get too excited.``

At $1.1 million annually, Durham would be No. 2 on the Cubs` payroll, behind only Rick Sutcliffe`s $1.9 million.

Durham, 27, is about to begin his fifth season as a Cub and sixth in the major leagues. After 1985, he will still be some 30 days shy of the six years of major-league service required to be eligible for free agency.

In 1984, his first full season as a first baseman, Durham batted .279 with 23 home runs and 96 runs batted in. He was on his way to an even bigger year before jamming his right shoulder in late June. He wound up missing 25 games.

The Cubs undoubtedly emphasized that injuries have nagged Durham the past two years. He played only 100 games in 1983 after having his best major-league season (20 homers, 90 RBIs, .312) the year before. He is a career .285 hitter.